Ancient Canals in America

Tell me what you think of this site:
www.ancientcanalbuilders.com...
The man who opened it found images on Google Earth. I don't know enough about artifacts in imaging, but some of this isn't artifacts. Some are probably man made, but give it a look and let me know what you think of the site

reply to post by zachi


It could be a hoax, the page looks iffy. If I could find another page it would help convince me, but it's a fun idea. It could be possible.

Ancient Canals
In the second half, pre-historic researcher John Jensen discussed evidence of canal systems that may have been built by an ancient civilization in the United States. Jensen explained that he first made this discovery while using Google Earth to research Civil War forts along the Mississippi River. It was then that he noticed an "eroded canal" beside a fort and, upon zooming the map view out, realized that it was merely a part of a much larger system of canals. In subsequent months, he uncovered over 250 sites which appear to have ancient canals, roads, or even strange symbols in the Earth. Rather than put forward a specific theory as to their origins, Jensen stressed that he is more focused on "'what is it' rather than 'why is it.'" Moving forward, he hopes for more on-site investigations of these formations in order to create a "time map" which will indicate the ages of these anomalies as well as when they were abandoned.

www.coasttocoastam.com...

John Jensen did a two hour interview with George Knapp on Coast to Coast AM last night, listened to part of the interview. Jenson does not claim to be an archaeologists, this all started when he noticed what looked like Canals on Google Earth..

www.ancientcanalbuilders.com...

Thanks for this. It will be interesting to study. Sounds very much along the lines of Graham Hancock's "Underworld" theory, though I think the dates here are signidicantly off,

He seems to be assigning ancient origins to much later constructs. Some of these channels and canals he refers to were made in modern times. And from these negligible Google Earth images he's conjecturing "ancient pre-historic" civilizations. That is, plain and simple, very bad science.

He doesn't help his case but stating a "pre-diluvial America" (sic). I'll agree that there was a "biblical" flood, it occurred in Sumer perhaps around 2500-2400 BCE, the textual record of which was appropriated by the Hebrews for their bible, but there never was a single, world wide flood. America certainly may have enjoyed its share of floods and changing coast lines, but there has never been a "pre-diluvial" America.

If you want to see true Paleo-channels, Google that term, especially related to the Nile in Africa.

I heard this guy and his stories about Canals...

I guess C2C is taking "google researchers" as guests now. Geez what a waste. What happened to that show? Now it seems to be just an outlet to peddle a crappy DVD or book that has ZERO credibility.

Some of you are being plain ignorant with how quick you're dismissing this stuff.

We are looking at a civilization of canal builders and aquatic engineers on the Atlantic side of the US stretching across the entire East Coast and Gulf Coast of the US.

2. This civilization built agriculture canals, habitat, transport and navigable channels and waterways that are extremely sophisticated and precisely engineered systems. Some double channels are over 300' wide, continuing for many miles in exact straight lines, indicate hydraulic, aquatic, industrial and mechanical engineering on a massive scale. These systems appear to be at least as sophisticated as current technology could produce.

www.ancientcanalbuilders.com...

Golden Meadows, LA29.336393, -90.204964

This is the southern portion of a long straight double line channel that runs more than 80 miles from Chauvin, LA around the Golden Meadow complex in this area, then crossing the Gulf and the Mississippi at Port Sulpher, then continuing straight North toward Gulf Port, MS. Tracing this channel, shows many areas that have eroded into and under the water table, and raising again later where the land is slightly higher. Many of the opening have been closed off by the Corp. of Engineers.

This is the single most important piece of evidence of a pre-historic civilization, because it can't be explained away as anything other than what it is. A very long, very well built, very old transport channel. It was built using very sophisticated technology and engineering.

We are looking forward to doing research on this channel to get accurate construction dates.

Spend a few minutes actually looking around at some of it, it just seems like we'd have heard about so much earth being scraped away if it wasn't really old, and some like the one above go for miles underwater and are clearly older than we can account for...

Ancient Cities on our Coasts .... ...... .... .There are hundreds of miles of coastline, from Maine to Florida, continuing across the Gulf States including Texas and parts of Mexico, that are covered with vestiges and remnants of a very sophisticated, enormously large water borne culture or civilization that existed BEFORE current sea level rose an average of 12 to 25 feet, or more.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/ef3840bd122a.jpg[/atsimg]

www.ancientcanalbuilders.com...

The above picture is just one taken by google earth, they exist all over the United States, may be worth a look on google earth.

what if not just a prediluvial america but a land in ruin if you can imagine with me we know the great lakes formed much of the midwest when they glaciers and that extended all the way through georgia and much of the south and you had the mississipian tribe who some say had massive cities and and the calusa having to deal with alot of constant floding due to said glaciers melting maybe thats why they built the canals then a great flood could have come from the south or west that would have a been a very crucial blow to them at that time or another thought what if they were just experiencing the same thing that new orleans is going through now but over a long period of time and thought hey we'll just keep building until a hurricane came by just wondering is all

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


Yes, my eyebrow also raised when I read the 'pre-diluvial' part. However, considering that they later went into such details, I think they are referring to the post ice age glacial meltwater increase of the ocean levels and subsequent flooding of coastal areas and not a worldwide(biblical) flood.

Originally posted by Blackmarketeer
He doesn't help his case but stating a "pre-diluvial America" (sic). I'll agree that there was a "biblical" flood, it occurred in Sumer perhaps around 2500-2400 BCE, the textual record of which was appropriated by the Hebrews for their bible, but there never was a single, world wide flood. America certainly may have enjoyed its share of floods and changing coast lines, but there has never been a "pre-diluvial" America.

I would suggest that there WAS a single, world-wide flood about 12,000 years ago that accounts for the flood legends. Before then we had an ice age. Glaciers reached far south in North America as far as Olympia. This sucked a lot of water up, providing a land bridge between Asia and Alaska, over which native Americans, not yet "native" populated the continent, maybe two.

Now take a look at Hudson Bay. It's a very old meteor or asteroid crater. The ice on Hudson Bay melted prior to the ice on land in the same manner as you now see an ice build up along the shores of Lake Michigan in winter. As the earth warmed at the beginning of the inter-glacial (which we are still in) the ice dam broke and Hudon Bay emptied its excess water in a matter of hours. The sea level rose up to 60 feet. Those civilizations clustered on the sea shore, such as in India, were inundated.

For specifics, including a great amount of technical data backing this up, please see "Underworld." It's a great read.

Interesting images presented on this site, but again, the majority of them are MODERN creations, not the handiwork of an ancient and lost civilization.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/b464dc5edaa5.jpg[/atsimg]
dredgingtoday.com
"Dredging operation on the Kissimmee River channel between Lake Hatchineha and Lake Kissimmee"


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/caf6ace0257e.jpg[/atsimg]
dredgingtoday.com
"Dredging operation on the Houma Navigation Canal"

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/ef3840bd122a.jpg[/atsimg]

This is clearly a dredging canal. The Army Corps of Engineers is responsible for most of these, without constant dredging these canals would quickly silt up. Within a few decades you would never know they were there. Some of these canals will stretch for miles, and some are abandoned. The siltation in gulf areas is rampant.

Biblical floods / antediluvian landscapes:

Of course the end of the ice age brought inundated coast lines, and impacted early mans coastal, river, or lake settlements. Doggerland vanished (who knows how many Neanderthal cave dwellings or settlements disappeared with that?), but this is straying into a straw-man argument. Displaying modern dredging canals and arguing that post ice-age flooding is proof of a vanished civilization doesn't really work for me.

I'm not arguing against the possibility of such, just that this guy is going to have to go a lot deeper than Google Earth images before he starts proclaiming an undiscovered civilization.

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


I find your comment on silt and the constant need for dredging most interesting. If these canals need constant care, there should be records of their being built and maintained. LA is particularly prone with it's coast and wetland areas. If a canal would disappear in just 10 years, all the canals should be very recent. Yet, some have very old cedar trees in them. Even if only a few are ancient, it's significant.

I also listened to the Coast to Coast broadcast. That's what piqued my curiosity. I still don't know what to think of the site. The man claims no expertise in the subject, he just found the canals and was curious about them.

There is a good bit of history in the St. Petersburg, FL area. The Tocobaga Indians date back to Columbus and they speak of others much older who lived in the area. This may all be less than prehistoric, but how did they build canals that are still there despite of hurricanes and silt?

reply to post by zachi
Ok,
the canals in south Louisiana are indeed man made and are there for boat navigation. No big mystery. If this is what his theory is based on he is way off the mark.

Originally posted by i am just saying
reply to post by zachi

 

Ok,
the canals in south Louisiana are indeed man made and are there for boat navigation. No big mystery. If this is what his theory is based on he is way off the mark.

If you listened to his iinterview on Coast you would have heard him say that most of the Canals he found via google earth have no water in them at present and many are underground.

I'm also thinking that these folks may be attributing these various canals and other works to an age much older than when they were actually done. The early settlers to North America were no slouches when it came to building canals and ditches in various attempts to gain control of the coastal wetlands. Unfortunately, it's not like Holland or the Netherlands, where you could build a canal and drain the land. Too many hurricanes.

I'm not seeing any good evidence regarding the dates claimed. So I'm more tempted to say they were built in the last 500 years or so, and not 10,000 years ago.

This guy's a fraud.

This is taken from his FAQ:

Q: Why do the big channels in Louisiana have two lanes, and why are the turns or curves so wide?

A: The larger channels that predominately are 'double' lanes must have been constructed for use that required that specific design. An example is the type of vessel, and another is locomotion. How were the vessels powered? It makes sense that a civilization that could build these channels, must have had some kind of large or industrial mechanical capabilities. It seems to suggest that their transport units were very long 'barge' type vessels, either with steering or power concerns, or both. The center line must be related to convenience of use.

The picture he is using in reference to the above FAQ is of a navigation canal cutting through the Louisiana bayou (depicted in above posts).

And this is where he loses all credibility. This is not an ancient mysterious canal - it's the handiwork of the Army Corps of Engineers.

He's not even giving the proper credit to the author of the photograph, Mr. Tim Carruthers. Tim Carruthers is a "climber and linguist providing a range of multilingual services to the outdoor and adventure publishing trades." Most of his works involve outdoor topics as seen under his portfolio.

See link to Straight Canals and Meandering Bayous

The proper credit for this photograph then is "Navigation Canal and Meandering Bayous in Louisiana Marshes", and is NOT, as grossly misrepresented by AncientCanalBuilders.com, an ancient channel or canal. It's built and maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers.

The photograph he's showing of "symbols" is, in fact, a salt marsh in New Jersey. They are not symbols or writing. It's what happens when water seeps through a salt marsh. Sometimes strange natural phenomena do occur (case in point the Giant's Causeway). Spend a minute and think rationally about this salt marsh - would it be possible for ancient peoples to write symbols into a marshy region and have them last thousands of years? These things probably change and shift constantly. You can't compare this to the Nazca lines because those are in a very arid region.

This guy took these photographs and purposely misrepresented them, the cynic in me wants to think that his agenda is to create some mystery around them, drive traffic to his site, where visitors will click on his Paypal donation button. Even a cursory bit of research reveals the source and/or "mystery" behind the photos, the fact that this guy hasn't acknowledged them while pushing his "ancient canals" agenda is telling enough.

For what its worth -

Thus far the oldest recognized ones in the new world are in Peru

Peruvian Canals Most Ancient in New World

A team of researchers working in the Andean foothills of Peru has unearthed solid evidence of canals confirmed to be at least 5,400 years old. The find is the oldest of its kind anywhere in South America

Now - if we buy into the whole "come across into Alaska and head South" thing for early man I suppose they could have made some further north on their way.

Canals were among the earliest constructs of ancient people when populations were transitioning from hunters and gatherers to farmers. The Sumerian creation epic speaks of raising the earth up and draining the waters of their land and irrigating. Irrigation canals must have been a natural first step for people settling down.

The funny thing about canals is that you tend to find them in arid climates, ie, the canals in peru or the us SW or sumeria and places like that.
You also find canals in conjunction with large population centers, it takes lots of people living together to build a canal system. NONE of which are representative of the climate or societties of the eastern seaboard.

There are ancient canals in the US, they were built by the peoples of the south west to irrigate crops.
They are well documented as to when they were built and used, many of them only in use for a few generations, because the bottoms erroded below the level of the farm land, hence no flow, or they got silted up, as canals do.

I live in an area where there are hundreds, if not thousands of miles of canals and without constant dredging they will silt up in a hurry.